Thanks for Playing Portentum at PAX West

PAX West wrapped on Monday, and we're still catching up on sleep. Thank you to everyone who stopped by, sat down, and rolled some dice with us. It was the first time we'd shown Portentum to anyone outside the studio, and it went better than we'd hoped.

Add more stations

Our booth plan had three stations. Then, the day before setup, we went to SLICE, a one-day conference for indie and AA developers, and came away with one piece of advice we kept hearing: add more stations.

JoCee remembered her favorite booth from PAX 2023, where the stations all faced outward into the hall instead of inward at the booth, so we redrew our layout to match. Then we got lucky, because the booth next to us was a no-show and we could spread into a 15x10.

We pulled together every spare monitor and PC we could find and opened the show with six or seven stations, depending on the day.

Floor plan of the original booth: a small corner with three monitors, chairs facing inward, a TV on the aisle side and two staff standing in the middle — The plan: three stations, facing in.

Floor plan of the final booth: a wider 15x10 with six monitors in a single row along the counter, chairs facing out into the hall, plus a TV and a swag table — What we actually built, the night before doors.

The best compliment is someone's time

There's a lot competing for your attention at PAX, so every minute someone spends at your booth is a minute they chose not to spend somewhere else. It was not uncommon to look over and see someone still at a station an hour after they sat down.

Every seat at the Portentum booth taken, players in paper cryptid headbands mid-run, with more people standing behind them waiting for a turn — Every seat taken, and a few people waiting for one.

A few people played on one day and came back the next. They skipped the tutorial, went straight to deck building, and we got to watch them read through the entire collection and put a deck together.

The thought that they went home, couldn't stop thinking about Portentum, and came back to try the deck they'd been building in their head is one of the biggest wins this game has had.

The dice are not the whole game

Plenty of players took one look at the dice and were put off. Rolling for your abilities sounds like the game plays itself.

Then we'd show them the abilities that manipulate the dice, and it would click. There's a lot more going on than hoping for the perfect roll. With a bit of skill you can push the odds in your favor.

Drafting in the shop. Jimothy is in this offer, going for 3 coin.

That conversation happened over and over at the booth. We want to keep leaning into the dice manipulation with the cryptids we add next.

Two awards and a lot of interviews

Close to 40 people from various press outlets came by for interviews over the four days. For a game we announced a month ago, we did not see that coming.

Two of them came back at the end of the show with an award. Boss Rush Network gave us one of their Game-of-Show awards, and SideQuesting put us in their five Team Choice picks. The whole team was honored.

Jaden at the Portentum booth holding the Boss Rush Network Game of the Show card, standing with a writer from Boss Rush Network — Game of the Show, courtesy of Boss Rush Network.

SideQuesting's entire write-up was one sentence:

You had us at 'cryptid deck-building auto-battler.'

Josh Speer at Hey Poor Player built a Mothman deck that needed doubles to fire, which left his board standing around most turns, and still called it "a very addictive deckbuilder adventure." Joshua Wyld at Gaming Furever spent his time tinkering between runs and said the game could "sap hours of your attention."

A thousand Jimothys

We printed 1,000 exclusive Jimothy cards for the show and handed out every last one.

We had a Jimothy banner on one of the standing tables, and at one point two kids spotted it and lost their minds. They ran over, got a photo with him, and when I handed them each a Jimothy card their eyes lit up. Then they went and showed it to everyone standing nearby. It was adorable.

He was a bigger draw than we expected. Some people came by because a friend told them they could get a Jimothy collectible card, and plenty of others loved learning that he has a place in Portentum. Seattle knows its raccoon. If you got one, you have one of a thousand.

The reel that sent a fair few of those cards out the door.

No internet on the show floor

Every machine at the booth ran Portentum with no connection at all.

The convention center wanted roughly $1,000 for four days of internet. That's $250 a day for wifi, on top of a booth we had already paid for. It's real money on an indie budget, and a hefty microtransaction to throw at us.

Portentum is online for a reason. Every warband you send into battle joins the matchmaking pool for the next player, so the teams you come up against were built by real people. Your account, the whole card set and every balance number live on our servers too.

None of that works in a room with no connection. So every station at PAX ran the entire backend on itself, with the game and a copy of our art library on a USB stick. It took about three weeks, and on the floor you could not tell.

The row of booth PCs from the front, six monitors all running Portentum, under the Portentum banner and the Snowfall Games booth sign — Every one of those PCs is playing offline. There is no network in this picture.

What's next

We want to get the demo into your hands ahead of Steam Next Fest, which runs October 19 to 26. We'll announce the timeline in our Discord first, so that's where to be if you want to hear it the moment we know.

Portentum launches on Steam in Q4 2026. If you played at the booth and want to keep up, wishlist Portentum and follow Snowfall Games on Steam. Come tell us about your favorite cryptids.

The whole Snowfall Games team crowded around a long restaurant table after the show, plates and drinks everywhere — The team, finally sitting down.

Roll well,

Jaden

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